Weaver

Well that was fun, wasn’t it? I mean that nice, two-year bit of semi-hope and change. But now it seems we’re back to the grind. You don’t have to be prescient to see Congressional gridlock just up the road. Our favorite almost-vice president is laying the ground work for a 2012 run at the White […]

After the hearing in Richmond, after activists and academics and law enforcement members testified to change Virginia’s marijuana laws, and after a General Assembly subcommittee struck down two bills that would do just that, what was left in the hearing room was this: a small baggie of a “leafy substance,” stashed behind the podium. It […]

Each November, the New Oxford American Dictionary celebrates one new word that’s garnered serious cultural currency in the past year. In 2008, it was “hypermiling,” or to maximize gas mileage through extreme driving practices. This year, “unfriend”—deleting a friend on a social networking site—got the neologistic nod. Every year new words are welcomed with pomp […]

Before we get into the chemical compounds and statistical trends and tonnage numbers sure to scare the hair right off a hippie, let’s you and I define a word. Ambitious. The definition of this adjective, I think we both can agree, rests in the details of one particular plan of President Barack Obama. WHAT’S YOUR […]

If you’re like me, you’ve spent the last six months in the glow of computer screens that shine slumping graphs onto your bewildered face, mumbling the day’s TED spread in your sleep and generally trying not to freak out as we ride out our sputtering economy as Amelia Earhart surely rode out her Lockheed Electra. […]

I have a personal and rather embarrassing standard for Metallica. It hinges on one question: Does the song lend itself to the daydream in which I stand on a stage, 32nd-note riffs sparking from my guitar, and snarl vocals that proceed to both impress and frighten the crowd, which—incidentally—is composed in equal parts of people […]

I am inclined to disbelieve in life’s exactness, but I swear this to be true. Precisely in the middle of the 10-hour drive that connects my old home of Washington, D.C., to my hometown of Indianapolis, Indiana, a drive I have made many times in many emotional states and will continue to make for the […]

Gentle Reader, It’s time we had a talk. Things haven’t been the best between us for some time, I think we’ll both admit. While some of you are holding this page in your hand, trying to keep our relationship alive, the Old Media Writer and the 21st Century Reader, I know some of you are […]

At the end of May, incoming UVA law school students got word that the student-loan ground was shifting beneath their very feet. An e-mail from Cynthia Burns, the director of financial aid for the law school, informed incoming first-years that the University had ended its relationship with Bank of America.

Todd Lucas is a difficult man to doubt. He is earnest and he is forceful and he is a person possessed of an electric personality channeled through a gleaming sledgehammer of a smile. So if Detective Todd Lucas of the Charlottesville Police Department says that there are gangs operating in a fair city such as […]

Imagine a loyal, reliable partner, the kind who will rub your back, pluck your nose hairs and take you aside to tell you when you have that little bit of white gunk on the corner of your mouth. Sure, he or she might not be the most exciting figure, and Lord knows they can be […]

Come the end of the year, UVA staff employees who have worked there since June 2006 are going to have to make a decision that will affect their futures at the University. For at least two of them, it will be a family affair. Staff Union at UVA (SUUVA) members Michael and Jolene Kidd have […]

UVA’s longest-serving dean of admissions, John Blackburn, recently announced that he will retire in June 2009, and that announcement capped a semester of top-level shuffling at UVA. The administrative face of the University is changing. Blackburn’s been at the helm since 1985. President John Casteen and Executive Vice President and COO Leonard Sandridge both have […]

Just a few months ago, Micah Davis, a broker for Mahone Mortgage, thought he had a deal done. He had run the customer’s numbers through Fannie Mae’s automated underwriting system, and the system had blessed the customer with an approval for a mortgage. Then came June. That was the month when Fannie Mae updated its […]

Scott Williams walked out of the John Paul Jones Arena feeling optimistic. The boiler mechanic at UVA’s heat plant had just finished seeing the University’s expo for its “Career Paths” plan, a major component of the new human resources plan that will take effect in January. Susan Carkeek, UVA’s HR officer, defends the new “Career […]

UVA women’s basketball coach Debbie Ryan joined a select few June 14 when she was inducted into the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame in Knoxville, Tennessee. Ryan was a member of the 10th group of inductees to the Hall.

On June 11, the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors approved a measure meant to silence incessantly barking dogs in the urban area of the county. Passed by a 4-2 vote, the measure makes it against the law “to harbor an animal which disturbs the peace and quiet” of anyone in the county except those who […]

When she started blogging under the name Dean J, Jeannine Lalonde was writing under the UVA radar. At her last job, she had talked about doing an admissions blog, but the idea fizzled, seeming unfeasible. Then she came to UVA. During her first year as an assistant dean of admissions, Lalonde created a blog to […]

For three days in September, Charlottesville will become ground zero for finance leaders from around the world. This fall, The Miller Center of Public Affairs will host “The New Financial Architecture: A Global Summit” on September 7 to 9.

When The New York Times revealed Virginia Commonwealth University’s secret deal with Richmond-based Philip Morris USA, the story surely sent a shiver through other universities. In exchange for undisclosed millions, VCU agreed not to publish—or even discuss—research without the company’s approval. In the story, Senior Vice President Rick Solona said that Philip Morris had similar […]

For situations like the current credit crisis, there are always two stories. You’ve got your long story of the economic drivers and credit-market discombobulations, one that recently took NPR’s “This American Life” an entire hour to explain. Then there’s the short story: I’ve got a mortgage that—very soon—I will be unable to afford. People who […]

Feel free to insert a corny “Georgia On My Mind” reference here: UVA continued its role as tennis whipping boy to the University of Georgia. In the NCAA men’s semifinals tennis championships in Tulsa, Georgia knocked the Cavaliers out of the NCAA tournament with a 4-3 victory, the first and only loss of UVA’s season. […]